Breaking News
Today, Boeing announced a delay in the schedule for the 787 Dreamliner. We had faith in Boeing…especially after the troubles Airbus had with the A380 putting the plane almost two years behind schedule, we thought Boeing would smartly throw some money to avoid the same media issues.
To build the 787 Dreamliner faster, Boeing outsourced a record 70% of the plane’s production, which required an unprecedented amount of coordination, one of the sources of the delay. More production than expected has come back to the Everett plant because subcontractors were unable to finish it. Also, a worldwide shortage of metal fasteners to bolt pieces of the aircraft together has left the program thousands short of what’s needed. Boeing has also had trouble programming the flight control software.
Deliveries of the Dreamliner are now scheduled to begin in late November or December of 2008 instead of May 2008. The first flight should be sometime in the first part of this coming year.
In other news, there have been reports that the carbon-composite frame could turn out to be unsafe and could lead to more deaths in crashes. The new plane, which is mostly made from brittle carbon compounds rather than flexible aluminum, is more likely to shatter on impact and may emit poisonous chemicals when ignited.
Not all experts are convinced that the composite material is inherently unsafe, but most agree that if it is, the FAA testing will uncover this and Boeing will work to correct any issues as it would eat into their profit margin. Of course, we say that about most companies…they seem to miss the point of it.